Old topic of male Viera.

[Bright-Flower]

It's not for lore reasons that we can't play as male viera/female hrothgar. It's because they had requests for viera, and requests for a beast race, but only the workflow budget to do one more new race for the foreseeable future, so they split the difference and did both with one gender. Whether we get the missing genders is not a matter of being lore friendly. Otherwise we wouldn't have male miqo'te who are in a similar position. It's a matter of dev team resources.

[ShinShimon]

This is the 600th thread we have made on this topic, and we have become exceedingly efficient at it.

[AvenoMatt]

I know this is on Male vieras and the answer is that most still live in Raktika deep in the woods but female Hrothgars. I the lore for the source is that the Hrothgars are a matriarchal society with a queen and presumably females due to being few in numbers and the heads of society are kept safe with the males doing most of the work/adventuring. However on the first we see any Hrothgars and even during the MSQ we deal with a Hrothgar who's wife, presumably a Hrothgar, is dead so we know they exist and live average lives even as workers since his wife was a miner but where are they? Granted I know we don't see them because they have no model but lore wise where are they?

[Daralii]

I know this is on Male vieras and the answer is that most still live in Raktika deep in the woods but female Hrothgars. I the lore for the source is that the Hrothgars are a matriarchal society with a queen and presumably females due to being few in numbers and the heads of society are kept safe with the males doing most of the work/adventuring. However on the first we see any Hrothgars and even during the MSQ we deal with a Hrothgar who's wife, presumably a Hrothgar, is dead so we know they exist and live average lives even as workers since his wife was a miner but where are they? Granted I know we don't see them because they have no model but lore wise where are they?

There but invisible, just like all the male Miquo'te, female Roe, Auri, Viera, and Hrothgar adventurers prior to their additions.

[Valenth]

Can I have any link for the letter you are refering to?

Sorry that I also don't have the link, but I can tell you why they weren't made: time restraints.

In the LIVE Letter and interviews Yoshi explained they barely had (and will have going forward into the future) the room in their development schedules to make two new player body models. They knew they had to implement Viera as the demand for it was already huge, but they also had the demand for a more beastlike race. Only being able to make two body models AND wanting to meet both demands they decided to make a female Viera body and male Hrothgar (Ronso) body. Yoshi also mentioned this is not simply a problem throwing more money at would solve. Adding more body models adds a permanent workload on top of the very tight schedule they already have, as they seemingly need to manually check every piece of armor they have and make on all body models, making sure they fit well. Also when adding body models they need to add unique emotes to it, like every race/gender combination has it's own unique /wave, /dance, etc. etc.

However! He has explicitly stated he's not saying 'no' to male Viera and female Ro.. Hrothgar. What he is saying though is that if they are to ever add them (which won't be soon at all!) they would only be able to do so if they found a way to cut down efficiently onto the current permanent development workload that all current in-game bodymodels have. So he's not saying he's opposed to having the missing genders in the game, just that as things are right now it isn't possible.

That being said though. The devteam has surprised us time and time again with their passion and dedication for this game, working themselves to the bone to deliver on the demands of the audience. The current male Viera thread is like 860+ pages long, you can be damn sure that the team is very actively looking into adding the missing genders somehow, doing everything they can to somehow make it work. And if they truly can't deliver they always have a good (though perhaps still not satisfactory) answer, giving us the reason they are unable to deliver. Hope that answer your question a bit

[RenewalXVII]

Can I have any link for the letter you are refering to?
And BTW it's still makes no sence after Flood to hide and expose your males to the danger when there is so little of the race left anyway. In my opinion in the times like that female Viera should've guard their males and make them housevifes (sorta, lol) instead of letting them go in the ONE place in the DANGEROUS forest crowded with sin eaters, that can LITERALLY destroy any means of the race to reproduce in one misfortunate event. More than that - if I were even a little thinking sin eater (which the high ranked are definintely are) I would seek this exact village to take down every male and thus destroying my enemy for good.

The Letters from the Producer are also hosted here on the Official Forums; here is the relevant letter, which addresses the controversies surrounding the jobs and races chosen to add for Shadowbringers.

[Vidu]

Can I have any link for the letter you are refering to?
And BTW it's still makes no sence after Flood to hide and expose your males to the danger when there is so little of the race left anyway. In my opinion in the times like that female Viera should've guard their males and make them housevifes (sorta, lol) instead of letting them go in the ONE place in the DANGEROUS forest crowded with sin eaters, that can LITERALLY destroy any means of the race to reproduce in one misfortunate event. More than that - if I were even a little thinking sin eater (which the high ranked are definintely are) I would seek this exact village to take down every male and thus destroying my enemy for good.

I just wanted to comment on this by saying: The lore doesnt have to make sense in a "logical" or carefully planned way. Thats not how societies and specially traditions work. If the Viis (and the Viera) have lived like this for thousands of years they're not gonna suddenly change their fundamental way of living because it "makes no sense (anymore)". Considering how long they live we can also assume that at least part of the living population was born and raised before the flood of light (or the Garlean Invasion on the Source) and they'd be even more kean on keeping the old ways of living.
Traditions arent always based on what makes sense right now but more on what made sense at the time. I'm trying to think of any good real world examples, but I cant come up with any that dont have the potential to just blow up with politic or religion. So let me try one that isnt 100% fitting but less... explosive: I watched a japanese documentary a while ago and a sushi chef explained the way he was cutting a type of eel. The way he cut it was from the eels back not the belly, which is a bad and difficult way to cut this fish. The reason? He was honoring samurai tradition, specially Seppuku. It made no sense for him to cut the eel this way, except for an old tradition. Again, not the best example probably since its less severe than risking a whole population to vanish, but I hope it brings accross the point I'm trying to make: Traditions dont have to make sense and they arent as quick to change.

...and even if they were, lets think about this for a second: What would happen if the male Viis just returned to the village for good? They lived as lone wolves for decades so they're probably not a very social lot. We would have the new problem of suddenly having a bunch of warriors who are used to being alone and always ready to strike to protect the forest being turned into housewives (by your suggetions) - how is that gonna work?

It might not be not "logical" that they male Viis are still staying outside of the village and are hidden in the forest, but its "natural" and a believeable lore as far as I'm concerned. Way more believable than suddenly turning them into housewives because their old ways dont make sense anymore and the society was changed over night.

...even though the real reasons are obviously that they probably wanted to stay close to the Viera-lore from Ivalice aswell as not having the time and ressources to model/design male Viera. But even if they had: If they wanted to keep true to the Ivalice-lore, the male bunnies are out in the forest. And societies dont always do what would be best for them or whats the most sensible way - sometimes they stick to traditions because "thats how its always been!" even if thats harmful. The Viera/Viis are pretty realistic in that regard.

[zeylos]

Sorry that I also don't have the link, but I can tell you why they weren't made: time restraints.

In the LIVE Letter and interviews Yoshi explained they barely had (and will have going forward into the future) the room in their development schedules to make two new player body models. They knew they had to implement Viera as the demand for it was already huge, but they also had the demand for a more beastlike race. Only being able to make two body models AND wanting to meet both demands they decided to make a female Viera body and male Hrothgar (Ronso) body. Yoshi also mentioned this is not simply a problem throwing more money at would solve. Adding more body models adds a permanent workload on top of the very tight schedule they already have, as they seemingly need to manually check every piece of armor they have and make on all body models, making sure they fit well. Also when adding body models they need to add unique emotes to it, like every race/gender combination has it's own unique /wave, /dance, etc. etc.

However! He has explicitly stated he's not saying 'no' to male Viera and female Ro.. Hrothgar. What he is saying though is that if they are to ever add them (which won't be soon at all!) they would only be able to do so if they found a way to cut down efficiently onto the current permanent development workload that all current in-game bodymodels have. So he's not saying he's opposed to having the missing genders in the game, just that as things are right now it isn't possible.

That being said though. The devteam has surprised us time and time again with their passion and dedication for this game, working themselves to the bone to deliver on the demands of the audience. The current male Viera thread is like 860+ pages long, you can be damn sure that the team is very actively looking into adding the missing genders somehow, doing everything they can to somehow make it work. And if they truly can't deliver they always have a good (though perhaps still not satisfactory) answer, giving us the reason they are unable to deliver. Hope that answer your question a bit

indeed, there is a chance we might see them, but I'd say dont expect at 5.x, 6.0 is the most likely time imo, btw, if u wanna get some awnsers like the question on the first page of the live letter thread by grinkaboy about the issign genders (we are at more than 100 likes! ) and by showing more and more support we can make it easier for SE to see its worth to add enough resources to egt them done as fast as its possible and make the devs have an easier time deciding between yes and no

[Rakshazi]

long story short

You have a point, ok. Traditions are slow to change. Still I think it would be better from the lore point of viev in the 1st to make male Viis at least have a base NEAR the main settlement. It's 100+ years of fight with eaters. It's a lot of time to change some traditions in order to survive.

[zeylos]

By lore, not only should the viera race onyl equate to about 2-1% of the player population, but female roegadyns shouldtn exist, same for male miqote, and au ra shouldnt be able to enter ishgard, only 1 WHM per server, only 0.5% of the players (if not less) can be summonerss, only about 5% can be female miqote, no crossover events, no scions outfits, etc etc etc etc etc